In his long-anticipated, more than 500-page report[2], the Department of Justice’s Inspector General David Horowitz[3] ignored the “800-pound gorilla” in the room; namely, the greatest scandal in American history. He seems totally oblivious to—and has criminally whitewashed—the “deep-state cover-up,” or the combined efforts of Barack Obama and others to destroy the candidacy and the presidency of Donald Trump.[4]

In addition to Obama, the treasonous wrongdoers include but are not limited to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton; former Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch; Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and former Deputy AG Sally Yates; former FBI Directors Robert Mueller and James Comey; former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper; former CIA Director John Brennan; former National Security Advisor Susan Rice; former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe; and Senior Advisor to Obama, Valerie Jarrett.[5]

By taking a dive and burying the truth and treason, Horowitz has added more shame to American government and to the corrupt DOJ and FBI. He too should resign immediately in disgrace. For openers, not once does his report mention Rice or Jarrett. The traitor Mueller is mentioned on 4 pages, while his co-conspirators—Rosenstein, Clapper and Brennan—are mentioned on a scant one page each, with Rosenstein being cited only in an innocuous footnote.[6]

Horowitz has committed one or more crimes—including treason—by covering up the greatest scandal in American history. He has zero integrity or credibility. He is part of the corrupt DOJ/FBI “culture” that has existed for decades, which is not discernibly different than the former Soviet Union’s brutal KGB.[7] Like Hans Christian Andersen’s fable, “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” Horowitz’s own criminality has been exposed for all Americans and the world to see.[8]

To be sure, such a wholesale attack against our Constitution, presidency, democracy and republic is every bit as evil as a physical attack against our great nation by an enemy. Clearly, the DOJ Inspector General’s office is “where the truth goes to die.” And the response must be equally severe—to send a message far and wide that such conduct and complicity will not be tolerated ever again.

[1] Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (seewww.naegele.com and http://www.naegele.com/documents/TimothyD.NaegeleResume.pdf). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com

[7] Under Joseph Stalin and other ruthless Soviet leaders, the KGB was brutal and responsible for the deaths of millions, directly or indirectly. However, by “killing” one innocent American, it is arguable that the DOJ and FBI have been and are just as brutal and reprehensible.

As Lou Dobbs—an American television personality, author, radio host, and anchor of “Lou Dobbs Tonight” on the Fox Business Network—stated correctly on June 11, 2018, regarding the FBI: “It is so corrupt, and its corruption is so pervasive.”

A massive national security crisis has been exposed involving the payment of approximately $145 million to Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and their foundation, in exchange for the sale of 20 percent of America’s critical Uranium assets to Russia’s despotic killer, Vladimir Putin.[2]

Americans ask: How could something so stupid and treasonous have happened? It defies imagination. After all, Putin is our enemy, and the enemy of free people everywhere. He began as a KGB agent in East Germany, or the DDR—as it was known before the collapse of Erich Honecker’s government, which was one of the most repressive regimes in the Soviet Union’s orbit, or the Evil Empire.

Following the USSR’s implosion, Putin and his thugs and cronies hijacked Russia’s incipient democracy; and they have been exploiting it ever since. He has killed and killed again, and he is ruthless. He must be viewed in this context, not as some Westernized Russian democrat, which he is not.[3]

Those Americans involved in this pay-to-play “Uranium One” scandal of epic proportions—possibly dwarfing Watergate—include Barack Obama, the Clintons, former Attorney General Eric Holder, Robert Mueller, James Comey and Rod Rosenstein of the FBI and the Department of “Injustice.”[4] Each of them has been shielded by America’s corrupt Leftist media, which is complicit.

Anyone who has followed the careers of Barack Obama and the Clintons realizes fully that they are some of the most corrupt politicians who have ever risen to the top of our great nation. They are a disgrace, and un-American.[5]

Obama is black racist through and through. If anyone doubts this conclusion, please read his book, “Dreams from My Father.” It is all there, in his own words and beliefs, which undergirded eight years of his failed presidency that tore apart race relations in America.[6]

The Clintons are corrupt beyond belief. Among other things, Bill Clinton has raped and defiled women, who in turn have been attacked by Hillary Clinton. He is America’s sexual predator personified, just as the disgraced Harvey Weinstein symbolizes Hollywood’s multi-decade depravity.[7]

The full extent of the “Uranium One” scandal is just unfolding. It is likely to get far worse, and explosive.

[1] Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (seewww.naegele.com and http://www.naegele.com/documents/TimothyD.NaegeleResume.pdf). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., http://www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com

Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan were great and heroic American leaders, who would be disgusted and saddened with their Republican Party today. It has deteriorated into a clique of whining, puny “establishment” ciphers like Karl Rove, Mitch McConnell, George Will, Bill Kristol and Peggy Noonan[2]—who have never done anything great or heroic in their collective lifetimes, and are the worst of American politics.

They traffic in fear and implicit hatred of everything that Donald Trump stands for; they have been brutally divisive; and they are doing everything in their power to demonize and block the presidential candidacy of Trump[3], who is leading in the polls[4]. They are the reason why lots of Americans left the GOP years ago, and will never return except to vote for Trump, and only Trump.

If they were to succeed in preventing him from getting the party’s nomination, many Americans would vote for him as an Independent, or literally hold their noses and vote for Hillary Clinton[5], or not vote at all in the general election. This would effectively “gut” the GOP, like Ross Perot did in 1992. The American people are angry; and this includes very conservative GOP women, Independents, and Reagan Democrats.

One needs to work on or with Capitol Hill to realize fully how bad both national political parties are. If one truly cares about our great nation and its future, the rejection of both parties is an easy and necessary decision. This is why lots of Americans have become Independents[6], and will never become members of either national party again. These Americans do not care what happens to the GOP. If it goes down the drain, so be it. The same is true of the Democratic Party. Sometime in the not-too-distant future, an Independent will be elected as America’s president.[7]

However, the criticism of Trump is not limited to the Republican party, or the Democrats, but extends abroad as well, in countries such as the UK.[8] Most Americans do not care what the Brits think about anything, much less our electoral politics. The country is descending into irrelevancy; and that process will be accelerated when Scotland leaves and the Trident program is canceled[9]. The sheer stupidity of some Brits is mind-boggling though—until it is remembered that the UK might be speaking German now if the U.S. had not been its “salvation” in World War II.

They ridiculed Reagan too. Lest they forget relatively-recent history, Reagan and George H.W. Bush set their sights on destroying the USSR, and it is gone now, without a shot being fired. The Brits and others in Europe would still be cowering at the feet of the Soviets but for the United States. How many young kids today have ever heard of the Soviet Union or the USSR, or the Cold War? Yet, in elementary schools in Los Angeles, as an example, students were taught to hide under their desks and cover their heads, and shield themselves from “falling debris”—stemming from a Soviet nuclear attack.

At some point, Trump and his lovely wife, Melania, may ask: “Do we really need this?” The answer is clearly “no,” and he might drop out of the race—although hopefully not. If he does, many Americans will never vote for a GOP candidate again, as retribution. Perhaps Trump gains satisfaction from “fighting the system,” and trying to make America better, just as Ronald Reagan did before him. Clearly, the “establishments” of both parties scream and “claw” at those who dare to challenge their power and orthodoxy. It is like belonging to a private club that discriminates.

Trump is admired by vast numbers of Americans, from all walks of life, just as Reagan was. Who would have thought that Reagan and Bush could have brought down the USSR’s thoroughly “Evil Empire.” Russia and its KGB-trained brutal killer and dictator-for-life, Vladimir Putin, must be next.[10] Reagan truly changed the world, which is why he is deified and “Teflon-coated” today—much to the disgust of the Democrats who hated him, just as they hated Richard Nixon and now Donald Trump. The Neanderthals in the GOP are too stupid to recognize the parallels.

Like Reagan before him, Trump represents America’s glorious future, not its past.[11]

[1] Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (seewww.naegele.com and http://www.naegele.com/documents/TimothyD.NaegeleResume.pdf). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from UCLA, as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal. Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com; see also Google search: Timothy D. Naegele

[2] Noonan is a perfect example. Like Rove, Will and Kristol, she is full of herself and a raving Narcissist. Her words have not been worth reading in years. She considers herself one of the GOP “elites,” when in reality she and the others are nothing more than whining, puny “establishment” ciphers. Her latest Trump “hit piece” in the Wall Street Journal is an example.

[11] By way of full disclosure, the author believed that former Vice Presidential candidate and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin had a very bright political future, which turned out to be wrong. Indeed, he believed that “two women might face off for the American presidency in 2012,” Hillary Clinton and Palin—which did not happen.

The death of Russia’s brutal dictator-for-life Vladimir Putin, and the end of Russia, will comprise the final chapter of the Cold War—which began at the end of World War II, and lasted more than 70 years.

Lots of us have lived through that war since we were children. Growing up a mile west of UCLA’s Westwood campus in Los Angeles, and attending elementary school not far away in the suburb of Brentwood, my classmates and I had to go through mock nuclear explosion drills and hide under our desks and shield our heads from “falling debris.” I remember it well.

It is estimated that the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin was responsible for the deaths of more than 30 million men, women and children—his own countrymen—including millions during the collectivization of the Soviet farms in the 1930s. As the Soviets moved through Germany and captured Berlin at the end of World War II, they raped at least two million German women in what is now acknowledged as the largest case of mass rape in history.[2]

To their credit, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush set their sights on destroying the Soviet Union; and it is gone, without a shot being fired. After Soviet forces left Afghanistan in humiliation and defeat—and in body bags—the USSR imploded. The Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain fell, and the rest is history. Yet, the Cold War did not end.

Putin is a killer, and Stalin’s heir.[3] After World War II, he came to prominence as a KGB operative in East Germany—or the DDR, as it was known before the collapse of Erich Honecker’s government—which was one of the most repressive regimes in the Soviet Union’s orbit, or the Evil Empire. Following the USSR’s implosion, Putin and his thugs and cronies hijacked Russia’s incipient democracy, and have been exploiting it ever since.

Despite being a “public servant” all of his life, Putin has amassed a fortune estimated to be $70 billion; “Versailles” has been built for him already[4]; and his cronies have amassed billions of dollars too, and are living like kings outside of Russia. The Russian people need to recover what Putin and his cronies have stolen from them, and then terminate all of them—like the last Czar and his family, and Italy’s Benito Mussolini. Nothing less will suffice.

The world must never forget that Putin left the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing to launch his aggression against Georgia. Then, he left the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and launched his aggression against Crimea and the rest of Ukraine. Also, the world must never forget that in addition to downing Malaysia Airlines Flight 17—and killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board—Putin killed Alexander Litvinenko and countless others.

Russia is crippled as a result of our economic sanctions and the fall of oil prices. By ratcheting up the sanctions even more—such as unilaterally denying Russia access to the SWIFT banking system—Putin and Russia will be in free fall, and in a death spiral from which they will not recover. Putin’s “invasion” of Syria may prove to be quicksand for him, just as Afghanistan was for the Soviets.

Russia is weaker today than the former USSR before it collapsed. It spans nine time zones and includes 160 ethnic groups that speak an estimated 100 languages. It is by no means monolithic, and may crumble “overnight.” Once Putin is gone, Russia may be dismembered—never to rise again—with China taking part (e.g., Siberia, which it covets) and the rest becoming independent states like the former Yugoslavia.

Each of the new states will act in its own best interests, just as has been true in the former Yugoslavia, and among the countries that were spun off from the USSR—which have thrived as part of the West. Putinism will not survive Putin. It will suffer an ignominious death, like its namesake; and constitute a tragic watershed in history, like Adolf Hitler’s “Thousand Year Reich” and Nazism.

[1] Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (seewww.naegele.com and http://www.naegele.com/documents/TimothyD.NaegeleResume.pdf). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from UCLA, as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal. Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com; see also Google search: Timothy D. Naegele

The truth has begun to come out about the federal prosecution of former United States Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska. In an article entitled, “Inquiry slams prosecution of Stevens corruption case by Justice Department,” the Washington Times reported:

Justice Department prosecutors bungled the investigation and prosecution of Sen. Ted Stevens, a probe that was permeated by the “systematic concealment of significant exculpatory evidence,” in some instances intentionally, that would have independently corroborated his defense and testimony, a court-ordered report released Thursday says.

In a blistering 514-page report, Special Counsel Henry F. Schuelke III said Justice Department prosecutors never conducted a comprehensive review of evidence favorable to the Alaska Republican and failed to disclose to defense attorneys notes of witness interviews containing significant information.

The report also says two federal prosecutors intentionally withheld and concealed significant information from the Stevens defense team that would have seriously damaged the testimony and credibility of the government’s key witness.

Months after a jury convicted Stevens in October 2008 of accepting and concealing money for home renovations and other gifts, the report says, a new team of prosecutors discovered, in short order, that some of the exculpatory information had been withheld. At that point, it says, the Justice Department moved to set aside the verdict and dismiss an indictment with prejudice.

New prosecutors were assigned after U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, in a stunning rebuke, held two prosecutors in contempt for failing to comply with the court’s order to disclose information to Stevens‘ attorneys and to the court regarding allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, which were made after trial by an FBI agent who worked on the case.

In throwing out the case against Stevens, Judge Sullivan said, “For nearly 25 years, I’ve told defendants appearing before me that in my courtroom they will receive a fair trial and I will make sure of it. In nearly 25 years on the bench, I have never seen anything approaching the mishandling and the misconduct I have seen in this case.”

. . .

The Schuelke investigation lasted two years and involved the examination and analysis of more than 128,000 pages of documents, including the trial record, prosecutors’ and agents’ emails, FBI reports and handwritten notes, and depositions of prosecutors, agents and others.

. . .

Since the Stevens case was dismissed, [Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney] said, the department has instituted a “sweeping training curriculum for all federal prosecutors and has taken “unprecedented steps” to ensure that prosecutors, agents and paralegals have the necessary training and resources to properly fulfill their discovery and ethics obligations.

“Justice is served only when all parties adhere to the rules and case law that govern our criminal justice system,” she said. “While the department meets its discovery obligations in nearly all cases, even one failure is one too many.

“But it would be an injustice of a different kind for the thousands of men and women who spend their lives fighting to uphold the law and keep our communities safe to be tainted by the misguided notion that instances of intentional prosecutorial misconduct are anything but rare occurrences,” she said.

Kenneth L. Wainstein, counsel for Alaska federal prosecutor Joe Bottini, said the nation’s criminal justice system is based on principles of fairness and due process and the fundamental requirement that criminal accusations should be leveled only when a person intentionally violates the law and not when one simply makes mistakes.

. . .

The Schuelke report does not recommend that any criminal charges be brought, but blames prosecutors for intentionally withholding and concealing evidence.[2]

It is another travesty and miscarriage of justice that the wrongdoers within the so-called “Justice Department” have not been subjected to criminal prosecution, convicted, and sent to prisons—where true justice will be meted out—instead of getting “slaps on the wrist” for their criminal conduct.

While Judge Sullivan’s words and actions have been commendable, the Stevens case is not an isolated incident of the Criminal Division’s wrongdoing. Tragically, adequate resources do not exist to ferret out the depth of the Criminal Division’s wrongdoing, or to bring its corrupt lawyers and others—such as FBI agents—to justice.

At best, Sweeney’s comments constitute lies, obfuscation and a perpetuation of the Criminal Division’s cover-up of the systemic corruption within its ranks. The same thing is true of Wainstein’s comments.

As I have written:

[A]buse of our criminal justice system by prosecutors is “unreal” today. According to one civil trial attorney with years of experience, it is akin to “KGB material”—as rogue prosecutors go after innocent people and try to convict and imprison them.

. . .

“[L]awyers who are prosecutors are often less interested in fairness and justice than they are in winning at all costs, and exercising their raw power and hurting others in the process—such as those who are innocent but are convicted anyway.”

. . .

And I added:

“A federal official with reason to know told me that between 15-20 percent of the indictees in federal courts are probably innocent. Some are seniors who have been charged with cheating the Social Security program, and they are scared to death, so they agree to plea bargains rather than fight for their innocence.”

Anyone who honestly thinks that prosecutors are advocates of truth and justice is living in a “Mary Poppins,” fantasy world, and knows nothing about how our legal system really operates. The truth about this system is not found by watching TV shows or films. Indeed, it is seldom if ever discussed or written about, yet it is often said—by lawyers—that the only thing separating prosecutors from guilty criminals is the “badge.”

Lastly, how many innocent people have been wrongly executed for crimes they did not commit? Even more startling may be the number of innocent people who have been wrongly convicted and imprisoned. Perhaps the best remedy for such abuses is to have the “guilty” prosecutors incarcerated; and let justice be meted out with respect to them, by those in prisons.[3][4]

Something is very rotten at the U.S. Department of Justice. No other reasonable conclusion can be drawn from an independent report on the 2008 prosecution of then-Senator Ted Stevens.

. . .

Most damaging to Justice’s credibility is that, three years after Judge Sullivan set aside the guilty verdicts against Stevens, the department still hasn’t disciplined the men and women involved. Nor has it instituted harsher penalties for future abuses. Attorney General Eric Holder told a Senate committee last week that a separate internal inquiry at Justice is almost done, but he would not promise to make all the results public.

Speaking of public scrutiny, you’ve probably never heard of Matthew Friedrich, Rita Glavin, Brenda Morris, Joseph Bottini, James Goeke or Edward Sullivan. But maybe more people should know them, and learn the various roles they played in a prosecution that not only trampled on the rights of the accused, but denied the people of Alaska a fair election and literally shifted the balance of power in the U.S. government.

. . .

Guilty verdicts against the Republican Stevens arrived less than two weeks before Election Day in 2008, causing the previously popular Senator to lose a close race to Democrat Mark Begich. Mr. Begich would go on to provide the 60th Senate vote to pass ObamaCare in 2009.

Virtually the entire case against Ted Stevens hinged on the testimony of the government’s star witness, VECO Corporation CEO William Allen. To protect his credibility, prosecutors withheld from the defense evidence that he had suborned perjury in a separate criminal investigation. Nor did prosecutors say a word in court when, according to the report, Mr. Allen offered testimony that the prosecution knew to be false.

The government’s seven-count indictment for false statements accused Stevens of accepting free home renovations from Mr. Allen’s company and then not reporting these gifts on federal disclosure forms.

Mr. Stevens and his wife said they had paid $160,000 for the renovations and as far as they knew that was the total cost of the work. What the prosecutors learned in interviewing witnesses—but never shared with the defense—is that even the foreman on the job site shared the Stevens’ understanding that they had been appropriately billed for all the work. Instead of sharing this evidence supporting Stevens’s defense, prosecutors selectively quoted the foreman to make it appear as if he had said the opposite, and they used his comments to falsely attack Stevens.

. . .

It would be nice to think these abuses were rare lapses. But we wonder what else we might learn if every DOJ prosecution was subjected to a review like the one Judge Sullivan wisely demanded.

. . .

Americans hand prosecutors an awesome power—the power to destroy fortunes and futures, and in this case to reallocate national political power. We are seeing a pattern of abuse of this power, in order to win big cases. To help prosecutors remember that their job is to do justice and not simply to beat the defense team, there should be automatic and severe penalties for Brady violations. Prosecutors could also be required to turn over more raw data with potentially exculpatory evidence, except in cases where it threatens national security or endangers witnesses in a criminal case.

Mr. Holder claims to have addressed the problems in the Stevens case by expanding training programs and the like. But as the nation’s chief law enforcer, he should know that harsh punishment is the appropriate response when anyone violates the rights of a citizen as badly as prosecutors did in the Stevens case.[5]

Why should anyone be the least bit surprised that the Justice Department’s Criminal Division is corrupt? Like the fish rots from the head down, the Criminal Division does as well. Anyone who differs with this conclusion has never dealt with the Division, its lawyers, or their injustices.

[1] Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He practices law in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles with his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, which specializes in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (seewww.naegele.com and http://www.naegele.com/naegele_resume.html). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from UCLA, as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He is a member of the District of Columbia and California bars. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal. Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g.,www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com; see also Google search:Timothy D. Naegele

Russia’s dictator-for-life Vladimir Putin is every bit as sinister and evil as Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Mao Tse-tung.[2] He is a ruthless killer—of his own people and others, and of the human spirit. Recently, he warned against despotism and chaos in Russia[3], which is equivalent to Hitler warning against the death camps, or Stalin and Mao warning against the ravages of communism. Putin is the face of America’s enemies today, personified, as well as the enemy of free peoples everywhere. He is responsible for the dismantling of Russia’s incipient democracy.[4] Despots like him are destroyed ultimately. However, in the interim, the death and destruction they bring about are savage, barbaric and tragic. Like a Mob boss, Putin is apt to die a cruel and horrible death, mirroring the cruelty that he and his ex-KGB lackeys have brought to so many in Russia and elsewhere.

He was born in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg; and he joined the KGB officially when he was 23, and rose through its ranks. He came to prominence as a KGB operative in East Germany—or the DDR, as it was known before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Erich Honecker’s government—which was one of the most repressive regimes in the Soviet Union’s orbit, or the Evil Empire. Russia has a brutal history, especially since the rise of communism; and Putin is a product of that system. Stalin and Mao were the most ruthless killers of their own people[5], and that is Putin’s heritage. He learned his craft well; and he must be viewed in this context, not as some Westernized Russian democrat, which he is not. Under Putin, Stalin’s reputation has undergone a renaissance, despite being the killer of more than 30 million men, women and children who were his own countrymen.[6] Putin is Stalin’s heir.

Some people argue there is a “soft side” to Putin, and that he has been principled and acted in the best interests of Russia. Indeed, it is argued that he fended off his ex-KGB lackeys in the selection of Dmitry Medvedev as Russia’s President, when Putin was ineligible to run for a third consecutive presidential term because of constitutionally-mandated term limits. Stalin, Hitler and Mao had soft sides too. Like Putin, they smiled and were shown in “photo ops” befriending children and women. In reality, they were butchers just as Putin is. Yes, the numbers of innocent people killed may differ among the four of them. However, each one brutally repressed democratic forces, systematically killed their own countrymen and others, and decimated the human spirit.[7] When Putin was coming to power, I was told by an old friend on Capitol Hill that he was a “smoother version” of Stalin, and I will never forget those prescient and ominous words.

Russia is not a Third World country today, but it is close—and certainly it is no longer a superpower. Based on its gross domestic product (GDP), it ranks behind Italy, Brazil, Spain and Canada; and it is less than nine percent the size of the United States.[8] Its military expenditures are 9.5 percent of the American spending[9]; and its antiquated Soviet-era conscript military was on display in Georgia. Indeed, Putin left the Olympic games in Beijing and traveled to the Georgian border, where he directed the Kremlin’s cruel aggression against its vastly smaller neighbor. Today, the U.S. military has no peers; and when arrayed against “paper tigers” and backlot bullies like Putin’s Russia, Americans can be proud of what George W. Bush accomplished.

He kept American safe and strong; however, there are serious questions whether Barack Obama is building on and not diminishing that strength. The idea that the U.S. and Russia would agree in principle on a deal to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) with a new agreement that would cut each side’s nuclear arsenal is absurd.[10] The Russians cannot be trusted; and Obama’s weakness is on display when he cuts any deals with Putin. China must be America’s focus of attention, not the backwater country of Russia. China must be included in any agreement, or else the cart is placed before the horse. Also, Obama surrendered to Putin by scrapping Bush’s proposed antiballistic missile shield for Eastern Europe—in the Czech Republic and Poland—which emboldened Putin and sent the worst signals possible to our allies in “New Europe.”[11]

Those who “scold” Putin are subjected to harsh dictatorial rebukes, at the very least.[12] His treatment of others is strikingly similar to how Stalin, Hitler and Mao treated their adversaries. Prison without trial—or “kangaroo trials”—has been commonplace.[13] More often than not, they disappear or are ruthlessly killed to send loud and clear messages to those who challenge the dictator, or otherwise might be considered “enemies of the state.” Like Stalin before him, the full extent of Putin’s atrocities will never be known; and his “fingerprints” will not be found on the “murder weapons.” However, make no mistake about it: none of it would have happened without him.

In addition to what has been described above, it is useful to catalog some of the more heinous crimes and horrors that have happened since he came to power, for which he is responsible directly or indirectly:

• Russian apartment bombings in September 1999, which led the country into the Second Chechen War, and brought Putin to power.[14]

• The assassination in London of former Russian state security officer Alexander Litvinenko who claimed, inter alia, that Putin ordered the Russian apartment bombings.[15]

• The Dioxin poisoning of Victor Yushchenko, which left the Ukrainian President’s face greatly disfigured, jaundiced, bloated, and pockmarked.[16]

• The brutal “Second Chechen War,” in which Russian troops entered Chechnya and took control over the country, with unofficial estimates ranging from 25,000 to 50,000 dead or having “disappeared.”[17]

• A widespread crackdown on media freedoms, with Russian reporters being killed and muzzled—such as the shooting death of Anna Politkovskaya[18]—and media outlets being shut down.[19]

• Miscellaneous jailings, killings and disappearances—including one of Putin’s mistresses.[20]

At some point in time, he will be eliminated and disappear from the pages of history, just like so many other two-bit, tinhorn despots before him. Again, it is apt to happen violently, in an instant. Regardless of how he departs, one can only hope that it happens soon—and his reign of terror and that of his ex-KGB lackeys ends, like it did for Stalin, Hitler, Mao and their thugs. The sooner the better.[21]

[1] Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass), the first black senator since Reconstruction after the U.S. Civil War. He practices law in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles with his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates (www.naegele.com). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from UCLA, as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He is a member of the District of Columbia and California bars. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal. Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years. See, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles

[5] See, e.g., http://www.naegele.com/documents/StalinMaoHolocausts.pdf (“Aside from ordering the killing of those in the Soviet hierarchy, it is estimated that Stalin was responsible for the deaths of more than 30 million men, women and children—his own countrymen—including millions during the collectivization of the Soviet farms in the 1930s. . . . [A]s the Soviets moved through Germany, they raped at least two million German women in what is now acknowledged as the largest case of mass rape in history.”)

[7] See, e.g., http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118463398015768385.html?mod=googlenews_wsj (“Russia has become, in the precise sense of the word, a fascist state. It does not matter here, as the Kremlin’s apologists are so fond of pointing out, that Mr. Putin is wildly popular in Russia: Popularity is what competent despots get when they destroy independent media, stoke nationalistic fervor with military buildups and the cunning exploitation of the Church, and ride a wave of petrodollars to pay off the civil service and balance their budgets. Nor does it matter that Mr. Putin hasn’t re-nationalized the ‘means of production’ outright; corporatism was at the heart of Hitler’s economic policy, too.”)

One of the “untried opposition parties” to which Putin was referring is former World Chess Champion—many people consider him the greatest chess player of all time—Garry Kasparov’s “The Other Russia,” a coalition that opposes Putin’s government. Seehttp://www.theotherrussia.org/ Indeed, Kasparov has vowed to “restore democracy” to Russia by toppling Putin, of whom he is an outspoken critic.

Kasparov has said: “An anti-democratic regime can be neither reformed nor modernized; it can only be dismantled. All the hope that goes into finding a way to somehow reform or perfect the current system is in vain. It’s impossible, because the essence of the system will remain the same.” Seehttp://www.theotherrussia.org/2010/02/03/kasparov-russias-european-choice/ He adds: “After a year and a half of [Dmitry] Medvedev’s tenure as president of Russia, Putin’s authoritarian regime has only become more severe.” See id.

[14]See, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Vladimir_Putin#Domestic_terrorism_accusations (“The chain of command was as follows: Putin (former director of the secret service, future president) – Patrushev (Putin’s successor as director of the secret service) – secret service General German Ugryumov (director of the counter-terrorism department). Maxim Lazovsky (the owner of Lanako, the company that employed the secret service agents behind the 1994-5 terrorist attacks) and Lieutenant-Colonel Abubakar were two secret service operatives directly responsible for the practical organization of the bombings.” [Yuri Felshtinsky and Vladimir Pribylovsky, “The Age of Assassins. The Rise and Rise of Vladimir Putin,” Gibson Square Books, London, 2008, p. 106]); see alsohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin

[16]Seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Yushchenko#Dioxin_poisoning (“On September 27, 2009 Yushchenko said in an interview . . . that the testimony of the three men who were at a dinner in 2004 at which he believes he was poisoned were staying in Russia. Ukrainian prosecutors said Russia has refused to extradite one of the men, the former deputy chief of Ukraine’s security service, Volodymyr Satsyuk, because he holds both Russia and Ukrainian citizenship.”)